


(The Sound Of)

by pluto



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-10
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluto/pseuds/pluto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped behind the time lock and imprisoned by Rassilon, the Master yearns for a familiar sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(The Sound Of)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by several wibbly comment exchanges with tsubaki_ny and darthneko about the drums and Time Lord heartbeats. Thanks also to foxysquid who read this and told me it did not suck :).

(The Sound Of)

In the sudden absence of the drums, he is desperate for them.

Of all the torments Rassilon has devised for him, this is the worst: the silence. Before he willingly trapped himself behind the time lock, the Master would have done anything for silence, would have embraced it as a gift. As mercy. But Rassilon does not give him silence as a mercy; by the expression on his face, he knows what he does as he takes the drums away.

The Master crouches in the darkness and screams to find himself no less mad. To find himself lost, adrift, alone and empty.

The only comfort he can find is in the sound of his hearts beating. But it is never right, never quite right. Still, he listens, huddles into a corner, jams his fingers into his ears until it is all he can hear, until

 

(One)

He wakes that night on the Valiant with the drums thundering in his head. Leaving Lucy's side, he walks near-blind through the dark, guided by the beat which seems to echo in the empty corridors, no longer confined to just his mind. Finds his way down stairs and up elevators and into the command room, into the forlorn little tent cast in one corner there. Lies down next to the body inside.

The Doctor is frail and withered on the outside, perhaps, but inside is still strong. Inside is what the Master needs. He huddles like a child against the Doctor. Rests his head against the Doctor's breastbone.

The four-beat sound that haunts him and drives him mad throbs in stereo, from his mind and from the narrow chest under his ear. His own hearts beat too fast, now a half-step behind and then a half-step ahead, and never falls into lock-step with the endless onetwothreefour of the drums, makes a maddening mess of things instead. But the Doctor's hearts--impossibly, he finds, the cadence matches. In his least sane, angriest moments, the Master will hold this against the Doctor--blame him for the endless call to war--but in the darkness, suddenly everything makes sense.

The Master slips a hand under the thin pajamas and clutches skin. He trembles, needy for the dual assault of the Doctor's hearts and his own mind. An arm shifts and wraps around him, clutches him in return.

He curls against the Doctor, and listens.

 

(Two)

It catches him by surprise as he lies in the Doctor's lap, bleeding out the last of his life, wringing what little victory he can from this defeat.

As the Doctor leans over him he hears it: the Doctor's hearts and the drums, racing in sweet synchronicity. And as his own hearts labor and slow, for a moment, for just a moment, he joins their duet. For a moment he is connected. Feels the Doctor's tears wet his cheeks, the Doctor's arms tighten around him.

For a moment, he is not alone.

Then he loses the rhythm. The Doctor's heartbeat quickens with desperation and his own grows even even more sluggish. Momentary harmony becomes cacophony, and the comfort vanishes. The familiar pointless rage returns, the madness. He wants to stop the Doctor's hearts, wound them beyond repair, knock them out of sync. He wants it all to stop. He thinks-- he wants--

He stops.

 

(Three)

In this bitter half-life, this broken and flawed resurrection, the drums are all but deafening, so loud he cannot form coherent thought. He stumbles through existence on instinct, eating burning hunting searching. His thoughts tangle in the drumbeat and loop, over and over and over and over. Everything is chaos, inside and out.

When he sees (smells/feels/hears) the Doctor again all he can think of is what pounds in sympathy with the endless rhythm in his head, what throbs under the lapels of that fashionable suit. He is compelled to obliterate that source of torment. Will waste his new life to do it. But still the Doctor comes for him, relentless. Perhaps he can't be stopped, like the drums. Or perhaps he can't resist the call of the drums either.

Can, can't, wants, doesn't.

The Doctor stumbles, his knees fold--

The Master, despite himself, rushes to catch him. Wants to put ear to chest and hear, but doesn't dare. The drums pound in his head and the Doctor's hearts beat within the embrace of his arms.

Unbidden, a vision of the time before the drums rises to his mind, soothes, so briefly, before it snarls again, before the Doctor snarls him again, before the drums batter him, louder than ever. His words catch and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. He can't escape. He is trapped. He is broken. He is alone.

Begs, though he knows it's useless. Listen, listen, listen, listen.

And then the Doctor hears.

 

(Four)

When he learns the truth, when he discovers what the drums really are, he is sure that he will be free, free at last, free of the Doctor's hearts, free of whatever madness it is that binds them together. There is nothing between them now. The Doctor with his pity and his scorn and his false friendship. His false sympathy, false understanding. No better than the Time Lords who inflicted this on him. The Doctor is as much to blame, the Master tells himself. As much to blame. His hearts beat in time with the drums.

But the cadence hasn't stopped for knowing what it is. The four-beat goes on, between his ears, across the room in the chest of the man who now faces Rassilon. The link has been severed-- not even requiring his own life; isn't the Doctor so merciful?--and still he hears the sound of drums.

He could let things go their course, let everything fall into chaos. Let the rupture consume them all. Then there will be silence. There will be no endless summons, no drumming, not even under the Doctor's breastbone.

Silence, what he has wanted so desperately since he was eight. Except...

Except for the questions asked, still unanswered. What would he be, without the drums? What would the Doctor be without him--no, what would he be without the Doctor?

All at once he knows what he must do.

He feels as sane as he ever has as he answers the call to war at last. He steps forward, hands crackling with energy, and tells the Doctor to get out of his way.

When the time lock seals behind him, he drops his hands, his dying body flickering. He looks at Rassilon's angry, astonished face and smiles before he lets his eyes slide shut. He listens, rapturous. He can still hear it: two hearts. Four beats.

 

(onetwothreefour)

And then silence.

The Master lowers his hands. He huddles inside of his dark cell while the end of Gallifrey races towards him, while the quiet suffocates him. While the last of this body burns up. But he won't concede defeat; he won't give up that easily. He knows he will hear it. He puts his ear against the cool walls, against the boundaries of the time lock itself, and waits.

He waits to hear the sound of drums, the sound of the Doctor's two hearts beating.


End file.
